


Unexpected

by Kaiyou



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Earth AU, Fluffy, Humor, M/M, Multi, Suggestive, college age, post-game-ish, the trolls are still trolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 10:39:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3847804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiyou/pseuds/Kaiyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(or, The Day Karkat Got Surprised By Everything)<br/>Karkat and Gamzee are now living with Dave in Houston, and they are all trying to figure out how all these changes are affecting things between them. So one fine day....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Birthday Fic for my friend NapalmKnight. I'm rusty as anything fanfiction, but... here you go :) enjoy!

The world was warm. And safe.

The world was warm and safe like the inside of a cocoon. A cocoon made of blankets and bony arms wrapped tightly around him. A cocoon where he’d actually been able to sleep and dream, still a remarkable experience that was only broken because his body was insisting he take a call. Karkat sighed and shifted, blinking his eyes open and smiling as he felt a face press against the back of his neck. Life was good. Life was -

Oh. Fucking. No.

The first thing his gaze landed on was the clock. The alarm clock, which had betrayed him by not going off on time. He was now -

“FUCK! Fucking fucking fuck how the fuck-”

He scrambled out from the covers and away from Gamzee, who let him go reluctantly. 

“Hey,” the other mumbled sleepily, “whats up little bro?”

“What’s up?” Karkat said, rummaging around the room for proper clothing. “What’s up? I’m definitely up now, a fucking hour late! I wanted to put the finishing touches on my project before heading out - shit!”

His body was making demands again. Grabbing his clothes he marched out the bedroom door and stared as the door to their one bathroom suddenly shut. 

“Dave,” Karkat whispered, debating on whether to wait or -

It had to have been on purpose. Frowning, Karkat decided to give him the benefit of the doubt for as long as it took him to get his shirt on. He clumsily did up the buttons, watching for the door to open. Shrugging his suit jacket on he decided enough was enough.

“Dave!” he yelled at the door. “I fucking need in there!”

“Well come in then,” the blond said. 

Maybe he was just getting ready to take a shower. Maybe he was -

Karkat turned beet red as he opened the door and saw Dave in the middle of -

What was the word again? Relieving himself? 

Karkat turned and pressed his back against the wall, trying to unsee what he had just seen. He couldn’t pretend the sound he heard was just the water running now though. “Dave, I need in there, fuck -”

“Well,” Dave said in his annoying Texas drawl, “I got here first, Karkitten, so you’re just going to have to wait your turn.

How long could one dude pee, anyways?

“You could always just use the sink or something.”

“The sink? That’s so fucking - you’re just - ugh.” Karkat said, fumbling as he pulled his underwear up his legs. “And why the fuck didn’t you get me up? You know when I have to leave for school!”

“Well, I figured after last night you might want to sleep in.”

Flushing again, Karkat said, “Nothing happened last night!”

“It could have,” Dave replied. “I figured your brain would be so full of what might’ve happened if you’d let it that you wouldn’t get to sleep until oh, 4:13 or so.”

Sighing as he finally heard the stream stop Karkat turned and looked back into the restroom, shoving Dave out of the way as he walked to the sink. “Get out! And why such a specific number, sheesh,” Karkat said, hopping from foot to foot as he waited for Dave to leisurely wash his hands. Nevermind that the Strider was right. Nevermind that him walking buck-ass naked around their apartment didn’t help matters any. Nevermind that Gamzee was perfectly ok with all of this, or that he was - well, more than perfectly ok watching Dave and Gamzee together, if he was honest. Which he didn’t feel like being at the moment. It was just -

And then Dave turned and gave him that smirk, the one that said he knew where Karkat’s eyes had been just a few moments before. So fucking infuriating. 

“Get the fuck out!” Karkat said, holding his pants in front of himself to shield himself from those shaded eyes. Shit. Fuck. Finally Dave was gone, the door closed behind him, and Karkat could take care of his needs in private. Fucking Dave.

Fucking - time - shit - school.

He finished up and scrambled to get his clothes all on in the right order, fixing his hair as best he could and running out to grab all of his supplies for school. Dave was back at his mixing table, ignoring him while working on some sick beats. Gamzee had made his way to the doorway of their bedroom and was leaning against it, watching him with sleepy eyes and yawning. Karkat admired the view in passing before checking his phone to see if he would still make the bus. “Shit. Fuck. Dave give me your car keys.”

“Um,” Dave said, sharing a look with Gamzee that Karkat did not understand. 

“What the fuck man, give me your keys. You’re the one who didn’t wake me up today, and it’s not like you have work or anything.”

“It’s, um, getting some work done,” Dave said. 

“Really?” Karkat replied, confused. Dave hadn’t mentioned anything about there being a problem with his car. 

“Really,” the blond said, turning back to his work.

Karkat sighed and looked over at Gamzee, who gave him a helpful smile and waved towards the keys with the puffy purple dice hanging from the hook by the door.

The last thing Karkat wanted was to drive Gamzee’s boat of a car. Dave’s mini-coop was much more to his style. Someday he’d have one of his own. Someday.

Today was not that day.

Sighing he grabbed the keys on the way out the door, and flew down the stairs to the garage.

. . .

Gamzee’s car was hot. And big. It had been made in the eighties, or the seventies, at least that’s what Karkat was convinced of. It was painted this purple sparkly color that Karkat though should be illegal, and had more purple fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. It even had a tape deck in it. The air conditioner didn’t work, which Karkat was positive was illegal in Houston, especially in June. 

At least it wasn’t a stick shift.

Karkat hated taking it on campus because it was the kind of car that screamed “look at me” and the last thing he wanted was to be noticed. Not this way, at least. Things were bad enough as it is.

Fortunately only a few people saw him as he parked in the visitor’s lot, making sure to lock everything up even though he was positive no one would want to steal this thing. 

Famous last words.

. . .

Karkat sighed as he walked down the hill towards the visitors lot. His presentation had gone over alright, he supposed. There were still the weird questions from the professor, but he was used to the prejudice. Hopefully the lady wouldn’t mark his team down too badly because he was a troll and she was a xenophobic bitch. His teammates had been supportive, especially the one blonde who was always a little too friendly for his taste, a little too much like Feferi with her highblood ways. it was strange how his classmates sometimes reminded him of his friends, even if they were nothing alike. 

No one like Gamzee, though.

No one like -

“Where?” Karkat said, looking at the blank space where a big ugly purple car should be. He checked his pockets, making sure that the keys were there. Checked his phone, no messages. Looked around to make sure he hadn’t missed the big honking purple metal congloberation. Felt his pulse speed up until he looked around and saw -

“Dave?”

The blond was dressed in a suit, of all things, leaning back against his car that was parked by the sidewalk just outside the visitor lot. 

“What are you -”

“Need a ride, kitten?” Dave yelled across the lot to him.

“Don’t fuck -” Karkat started to yell back, then looked around, flushing as he saw people staring at him. “Fucking Strider,” he murmured under his breath, stomping over to the other. “Don’t fucking call me kitten,” he hissed at Dave, scowling even more when the blond opened the passenger-side door for him with an exaggerated flourish.

“Right,” Dave said, going around to the other side of the car. “We had some business to take care of after my car got finished, so we decided to go ahead and pick up his car. He needed to grab some things.”

Karkat nodded, thankful for the air conditioner inside the mini-coop. “Thanks,” he said. “For picking me up.”

“No problem,” Dave said, pulling out and starting back home. “How’d your class go today? Get here in time for everything?”

“Yeah,” Karkat replied, fidgeting a bit with his seatbelt. Being alone with Dave always made him just a bit nervous, these days. He wasn’t sure why. 

“You had your presentation today, in that one biophysics class, right? How’d it go?”

“Fine,” Karkat answered, frowning as he thought about his teacher. He saw Dave glance over.

“Teacher didn’t give you any shit, did she?”

“No.”

“I keep telling you, we should just have Sollux get on her shit. Straighten her out.”

“No! No, its fine. She was fine.”

It wasn’t fine, but fuck it all if he was going to pull his friends into this mess. He was the one who wanted to major in biology at a human university, anyways. If it was hard, he’d just have to try harder.

“Right,” Dave said. 

Karkat grit his teeth, tempted to start ranting about the teacher and the class in general. He wanted to. Probably would later. But not to Dave, not right now, because the other would just want to up and fix everything and some things just couldn’t be fucking fixed because people would be assholes no matter what you did or how well you did it.

Fuck.

He got out his phone and started texting Terezi anyways, figuring even if she didn’t feel like listening it was better than letting all of the crap building up in his head boil over into words he yelled at Dave. It was strange. Normally he didn’t give a shit about what the other one said or thought, but lately things had just been weird. Challenging. Different. 

It was strange because he was happy being with Gamzee. Gamzee was familiar, and comforting. Even when he was frustrating he was comfortable, because they were the same frustrations that Karkat had been dealing with the whole time they’d been growing up. Dave was supposed to be predictable that way too, and just be the asshole human who’d condescended to let them share his two-bedroom apartment. 

Then things had changed, when they’d moved in. First shifted between Dave and Gamzee, who got along unexpectedly well, which Karkat supposed was good given that they were both spending hours together at the apartment. Then between him and Gamzee, as the human concept of relationships bled over into what they had, shifting from pale to the edge of flushed. Gamzee was still gentle with him, though, in a way that the taller troll wasn’t gentle with Dave. It was still hard to know what to think about that other than the fact that he’d discovered lately that he liked to watch.

And they knew it.

Karkat sighed, willing Terezi to respond.

At some point in the ride Dave had turned up his music, drowning out any attempt for the two of them to have a conversation. That was fine with Karkat, really. He was still not fond of the human’s weird attempts at creating songs, but it was starting to bother him less and less. Which was, he supposed, a good thing since Dave played his music rather loudly in the apartment.

However, as he calmed down from school, something bothered him.

He looked over at Dave, frowning and trying to place what was wrong.

“Why are you wearing a suit?” he finally said.

“What?” Dave yelled over the music as he pulled into the garage of their apartment building.

“I said why are you -” Karkat yelled back, then huffed and reached forward and turned the music down. “Why are you wearing a suit?”

Dave’s lips curled into a suspicious-looking smile at that. “Why, Karkat, are you appreciating my sick threads?”

Jaw dropping open, Karkat said, “I didn’t say that! I just - normally you just wear a t-shirt and pants. It isn’t like you to wear a suit.”

Dave glanced over, smile turning mysterious. “Well, it’s a special night,” he said.

“Special? But -”

“We’re here, Karkitten.” Dave said, pulling into his space in the garage. Come on up.”

Karkat grumbled and unbuckled his seatbelt, wanting to yell as Dave grabbed his bag. Humans had the weirdest customs. Dave weirder than most. Comforting himself with the fact that the blond hadn’t zipped around to open his door - something that had happened before, much to his chagrin - he followed Dave into the building and up the stairs to the apartment.

The smell when Dave opened the door was mouthwateringly good. Looking at Dave in surprise Karkat entered. There was finger-food laid out on the coffee table in the living room, and cushions on the floor around it. 

“I know the table in the kitchen is stacked high with things,” Dave said, “but I thought it’d be fun to eat together tonight.”

“Special night?” Karkat asked, still confused. He rounded the corner and looked into the kitchen, surprised to see Gamzee in a frilly purple apron pulling a roasted turkey out of the oven. “Why -”

“Just go with it,” Dave said, looking a moment too long at Gamzee before moving to put Karkat’s bag down in the corner. 

Gamzee turned around and waved his oven-mitted hand at them. “Hey there, little bro. How was your day at school?”

Karkat flushed, oddly weirded out by the image of Gamzee in an apron. At least he was wearing clothes underneath. There was no telling what he and Dave had been up to that day and for once Karkat wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. Instead he just asked, “Can I help you with something?”

“Nah, man, just go over there to the couch and sit yourself right down. Been a long hard day and you need your calm space now. Go on.”

Feeling vaguely perturbed by this - by all of this - Karkat loosened his tie and went over, sitting down on some of the cushions in front of the couch. Dave was back at his computer typing away at someone - looked like John, from the wall of blue text - and there was some shitty video game paused on the television. Worrying at his lip Karkat picked up the glass of apple juice in front of him and took a drink, wondering if he should start in on the finger food in front of him. He wondered if humans ever served real fingers for finger food.

A buzzing in his pocket saved him from these strange thoughts, and he took his phone out, pleased that Terezi had pulled herself away from whatever it was she was doing with Vriska to answer him back.

Time flew by as he chatted with her. It was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes before all the food for the meal was laid out on the table, though, and Gamzee was sitting beside him. Karkat still felt weird that neither he nor Dave would let him get up to help, but his stomach was grumbling so it was good to just dig into the meal.

“So why are we having this special meal tonight, anyways?” Karkat asked as he used bread to sop up the last of the gravy on his plate. He frowned as he noticed the look on Dave’s face, and looked over at Gamzee. The taller male had, fortunately, removed the apron before coming to the table. He didn’t own anything even resembling a suit, but his shirt looked freshly washed and his hair was more orderly than normal.

“What,” Karkat said, looking from one to the other as Gamzee pushed himself up.

“Gotta clear the table, little bro,” Gamzee said. 

Dave stood and helped, getting onto Karkat when he tried to stand as well. “Just keep seated and relaxed there, man.”

It was impossible to be relaxed with both of them acting all mysterious like this. What in the world was Dave thinking. What in the world was Gamzee thinking, especially. 

Well, that was debatable most days, he reflected, relaxing a bit when the other troll came back and sat by him.

“What’s going on,” he asked again, both annoyed and comforted when the taller male wrapped an arm around him and nuzzled his hair. 

“Don’t freak out about it, little bro,” Gamzee said. “Just relax.”

It was hard not to relax with Gamzee rubbing his shoulder like that, but Karkat didn’t want to relax. He wanted to figure out what was going on. And then when Dave came back in -

“What the fuck is that!” Karkat yelled, horrified. He would’ve jumped up if Gamzee hadn’t held him down, refusing to let him go.

“What - the - fuck -”

There was a huge blob on the plate that Dave was carrying. A huge, misshapen blob that looked a little bit like a heart. A huge, misshapen, violently red blob with a candle stuck in the middle of it. 

“Happy birthday, Karkitten,” Dave said, giving a sweeping bow before lighting the candle on fire.

“Birthday,” Karkat said, dumbfounded as he stared at the thing in front of him. “I don’t have a birthday.”

“Well,” Gamzee said, still snuffling his hair, “it’s a kinda like your wriggling day. Things are different here on earth, yeah, but Dave here was asking about it. The humans celebrate these things every year, so we kinda figured -”

“That you’d surprise me with this - this thing?” Karkat said, waving his hand at the mass in front of him.

“Hey,” Dave said, mock-offended, “I baked this cake myself, I want you to know. Made the icing and everything. Now blow out your candle like a good little kitten and we can get this show on the road.” 

“You want me to blow -”

“Well, yeah,” Dave said, grinning. “But I figure we can start with the candle, right now.”

Karkat stared at him, shifting a bit uncomfortably until Gamzee loosened his grip and let him sit up. “Fine,” he said, frowning first at Dave then at the cake. “I’ll blow your stupid fucking candle - blow out! Damnit Gamzee stop laughing!”

Huffing Karkat leaned forward, images of having watched Gamzee blow Dave’s - well, that certainly didn’t bear thinking about, not right now at least. So he just blew and watched the flame from the candle get snuffed out in the rush of air.

“There. Happy now?” he said, eyes widening as Dave produced a knife. He backed up into Gamzee, not really sure what was going on now.

“Ecstatic,” Dave said. 

Karkat marginally relaxed when Dave just used the knife to cut off the bottom of the heart and put the piece of cake onto a small plate. Evidently the cake was chocolate. Acceptable. Karkat was somewhat mollified until Dave came around with just the one piece, sitting next to him instead of at the end of the table like he had earlier. 

“Um, what are you doing,” Karkat said to him, glancing back as he was pulled into Gamzee’s lap.

“Well, as the birthday boy, you should know there are certain earth traditions that need to be observed,” Dave said. “The first of which is that I need to feed you cake.”

“That’s -” Karkat started, confused, especially when Dave took a bite of the cake himself. A very slow bite. After which he licked the icing off the fork. “That’s - I’ve never heard of that tradition.”

“Well,” Dave said, “It’s a super secret tradition.”

Karkat was distracted from fact that this made absolutely no sense by the feeling of Gamzee’s fingers rubbing up and down his sides and over his grubscars. He wanted to elbow the other because this was so not the time for that sort of thing. It was really, really, not the time.

“Ready for a bite?” Dave said, holding out the fork. 

“I suppose,” Karkat said, starting to reach for the utensil.

“Ah, no no,” Dave said, smirking and leaning close. “I’m feeding you, remember? Now, just open wide.”

Karkat could almost see the human’s eyes behind his shades. It was strangely intimate. He’d seen those eyes once or twice without the shades, both times when Dave and Gamzee were - ah - together. Flushing at the memory Karkat opened his mouth, lodging an inner protest that would be subsequently expressed when he wasn’t caught in the middle of - whatever was going on here.

The cake was sweet. Dave twisted the fork in his mouth, scratching the tines over his tongue in a way that reminded Karkat of the scratch of Gamzee’s claws. Humans didn’t have claws. That didn’t really matter, though, when Dave leaned forward after pulling the fork from Karkat’s mouth. He was moving slowly, and Karkat knew that if he really said to stop Dave would stop. Gamzee would let him up. No one would be upset.

Still, it was nice to have the illusion that he was trapped here, especially as he gave in and let Dave press their mouths together in a kiss.

It was different. He had to be more careful than when kissing Gamzee, he knew that from the way Dave had come away bleeding before in some of the encounters between the two. This wasn’t a harsh kiss anyways, though. It was soft, sweet, strangely tentative. 

Karkat liked it.

He was surprised when Dave pulled back, cheeks flushed. It was the first time he could remember seeing Dave anything less than completely self-confident. For the first time Karkat wondered if he’d been misreading things. He wondered if this was actually important to Dave. From the look in the other’s eyes, he felt important. It made his chest feel funny.

“More?” Dave asked.

“Yes,” Karkat said, leaning back against Gamzee’s chest. 

Evidently more did not include cake, by which Karkat was only momentarily bothered. Instead it meant more interspecies sloppy makeouts, with Dave working his way between Karkat’s legs so they could both lean back against a softly humming Gamzee. 

It was different than being with Gamzee alone. Scarier somehow, for all that they were both being gentle with each other. Karkat wasn’t sure how much he liked gentle, knew part of what he liked about seeing the other’s together was that they weren’t gentle, but for now -

For now, these sweet kisses, with Dave’s fingers fumbling over his skin as Karkat worked his arms around the human and tried not to shred his suit jacket, for now gentle was good. For now gentle was enough. Even Gamzee was being gentle, nuzzling the top of his head and huffing at his horns. Karkat would want more later, but he’d never seen this side of Dave, and it was worth it to just get lost in it, surrounded by the familiar and the new in a delicious chocolate-flavored sandwich. 

It was almost dreamy, being caught in this slow tangle of limbs and bodies. He was almost embarrassed at how good it felt. That was pushed away though, alongside the embarrassment from feeling how Dave’s human body was responding - to him. He felt a certain sense of satisfaction at that. Especially since the blond seemed to be content right now with nothing more than kissing him until they were both breathless and relaxed, held by the long arms of the troll they were both somewhat flushed for.

“So,” Gamzee finally said, nails teasing the side of Karkat’s neck as the smaller troll and Dave snuggled up against the taller male, “are we ever going to get to the birthday spankings tonight? Because if not, I’m starting to get hungry for a little bit of that cake, man.”

Karkat blinked at Dave, confused. “Birthday spankings?” he asked.

“Ah, yeah,” Dave said, looking embarrassed for only a minute before he smirked. “I was going to tell you about those.”

Karkat’s eyes flew wide as the human palmed the cheeks of his ass. Jumping up he started stalking back towards the bathroom. “I’ve got to go... do something,” he said, ignoring Dave’s laughter in the background as he closed the door behind him and stared in the mirror.

Birthday spankings. Birthdays. Lips smeared red with icing from a birthday cake. Lips flushed with birthday kisses. Blond humans and long-limbed trolls who worked together to get his blood-pusher going at a rate he was sure wasn’t healthy.

“Birthday spankings indeed,” he said to himself, leaning his forehead against the cool of the glass as he held to the ceramic washbasin. Then he licked his lips, tasting Dave and chocolate and the sugar-sweet icing all wrapped up together, and smiled. A secret smile, one that he wouldn’t show the other two. Not soon, at least. This was a smile just for him.

Happy birthday, indeed.

~fin~


End file.
